The “what”, “why” and “how” of spirituality in the workplace

Abstract

While the attention to workplace spirituality is growing, there is debate as to what exactly this term “spirituality” means. There seems to be multiple views of workplace spirituality. It could be argued that there are different definitions for the meaning of “spirituality” due to the very strong personal nature of the word itself. We argue that this multiple view of spirituality is a positive thing for organizations if managers attempt to understand differing spiritual views and also encourage all views within an organization. In this paper, we summarize the different perspectives of spirituality, discuss the benefits of encouraging spirituality within organizations, and examine different perspectives of implementing a spirituality‐based culture within firms.